Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, a vital San Diego music institution for nearly 40 years, is one of nine recipients of this year’s National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowships, the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts.

The veteran singer, songwriter, music educator and community activist is the first San Diegan in any artistic medium to receive the prestigious NEA fellowship and the only California-based honoree this year. He is also one of only a few Chicano artists in any medium selected in the fellowships’ 32-year history.

Previous NEA fellowship honorees include such legends as blues giant B.B. King, gospel music great Mavis Staples and bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe. Visual artists, poets and storytellers are among this year’s recipients.

In a coincidental prelude, Sanchez will also be honored locally June 12 at Logan Heights’ King-Chavez Academies, where the school’s newly renovated auditorium will be dedicated in his honor.

“Chunky epitomizes what we’re trying to do with these awards — to honor the recipients’ contributions to the art form and also to the community,” said Barry Bergey, the NEA’s director of Folk & Traditional Arts. “Artistic excellence and artistic merit are the main criteria. We look at the contributions a person has made over a lifetime of activity. The artist also needs to be an active, practicing artist.”

Sanchez, 60, will be honored by the NEA this fall in Washington, D.C. He and this year’s other fellowship recipients will be feted at a Sept. 25 ceremony and luncheon in the Library of Congress. Sanchez will also appear at Lisner Auditorium, near the Capitol, at a Sept. 27 honorees’ concert that is free and open to the public. He will perform there with Los Alacranes (The Scorpions), the socially inspired band he and his younger brother, Ricardo, cofounded in San Diego in 1975. The group has provided music for San Diego gang intervention programs and has counseled and worked, formally and informally, with hundreds of at-risk San Diego youth.

Sanchez learned of his NEA honor last month but was asked not to tell anyone until Tuesday’s official announcement. He and the other eight recipients were selected from a group of 169 nominees from across the nation.

The NEA will fly him, his wife and the members of the four-man Los Alacranes to Washington and provide accommodations. In addition, Sanchez and the other honorees will receive $25,000 each.

“I’m extremely flattered. It’s an honor to be in this company,” he said from his Encanto home. “This fellowship gives me more energy to continue what I’m doing. And I’m very proud to represent, not just myself, but my family — my wife, Isabel, my six kids, my 12 grandkids — as well as the United Farm Workers and everyone in the neighborhood.”

UFW founder Cesar Chavez was a major fan and had Los Alacranes appear with him at numerous UFW-related events throughout California.

Sanchez, the son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in the agricultural community of Blythe and later attended San Diego State University.